Pokémon: Swindled Silver
by KommissarReb
Summary: After my Pokémon Silver game lost it's save ability, my friend wanted it. He replaces the battery so the game can save a file again, but that wasn't the only part of the game he changed...


Being a kid who didn't play through any Pokémon game the whole way through until It was late summer after my freshman year of high school meant I was new to the series while my friends were very acquainted to it.

Being a kid in a poor family who's parent's didn't buy me anything meant I heavily relied on other people for most things I wanted. Such included my Game Boy Advance SP which I play my Pokémon and Harry Potter games on. The only Pokémon games I had were Red, Blue, and Yellow from Gen I that were previously owned by my younger cousin. He also gave me a copy of Silver from Generation II which I played the whole way through and nearly beat had it not been for the save dying out. When my cousin saw how many Pokémon I caught in Blue version (thanks to the help of the Mew glitch for version exclusives and trade-only Pokémon) he asked for Red back for a nostalgia trip.

A few years later, a friend of mine by the name Damien saw I had Pokémon Silver and wanted it. I told him the game's ability to save went dead, but he didn't seem to mind. This left me with Pokémon Blue and Yellow left (I eventually gave Blue away to him after he promised me to pay me later).

About six months later, Damien told me that he fixed the game's saving problem, and wanted to show me. I was delighted to hear this because Silver was my newest game due to my difficulty scraping enough money together to buy a Nintendo DS for the HeartGold game I bought in anticipation that one day I would get one. He told me I could have it back in exchange for my Pokémon Blue game. I winced when I saw him overwrite my game in which I spent so much time on, but I didn't let it bother me much because I was going to back to playing Silver again. He left shortly after my game started and went home for dinner at his parent's request.

After starting a new games once my settings were optimized to my liking, I was in my room in New Bark Town. After going downstairs to mom, I noticed that there was another staircase next to the one leading to my room. After mom finished her unavoidable lecture me how to use a phone (a sill I never use), I went to investigate the new staircase. It looked as though Blue, the Gym leader of Viridian was there. The difference being he had red hair. I talked to him and he said this:

"Hello Gold. My name's DAMIEN."

At that point it became obvious to me that Damien must have thought it would be funny to hack my game after fixing it. At first I thought of going to his house and giving him a hard time for screwing with my game, but I was more curious to see the game through.

I left the house and to the Elm lab. I would have thought Silver would have been replaced with Damien as a rival, but he was still staring into the wall of the lab. I wondered whether I would have two rivals as I walked in the lab to get my starter. Damien somehow was already there even though I left the house first. I picked Cyndaquil, as usual. Damien picked Chikorita. Elm's dialogue was the same, completely ignoring Damien's existence. Damien apparently noticed this and tried to get his attention, but to no avail. He left in a huff after launching a barrage of profane insults to Elm and everything in his lab, which nobody noticed other than me.

After seeing Mr. Pokémon I encountered Silver and beat him. When Silver tried to run as usual, Damien ran and bumped into him. Silver was angry:

Silver: Try that again and I'll pound you.

Damien: You and what army, jackass?

I was amused at the argument Damien had made up. He always intelligent sarcasm that was sometimes less appealing by his common use of curse words.

Next to them a green Pokémon and a Blue Pokémon are next to them, fighting in a similar fashion the two Rattatas were going at each other on the way to Violet City. This was obviously Damien's Chikorita and Silver's Totodile going at each other. When Damien won after 35 seconds of overworld animation, the two Pokémon disappear and Silver dashes south calling us both weak. I have always smirked at Silver whenever he called me weak after I beat him, but Damien says it for me here.

Damien: That runt seems to have a learning problem. I'll fix it for him so he wont live to make it again.

Damien walks into the Pokémon Center and I follow suit. He stands in front of Nurse Joy asking her to heal his Pokémon. When she replied with a "...", he walked up to me saying.

Damien: Why wont anybody talk to me? Don't I matter?

Now I knew he didn't really need to do the healing routine since NPC's Pokémon are automatically revived after they battle. But that statement of his made me feel uneasy as it appeared to be a foreshadowing.

I didn't meet Damien again until Azalea Town where he apparently defeated the Rockets that were cutting off Slowpoke Tails for money. I went down there and the Rockets were moaning and groaning and complaining about how some red-haired freak came down and beat them all. I couldn't help but laugh to see that one of them was floating in the water next to the shore. What killed the amusement is when I went to talk to him, the text read:

"This ROCKET appears to have been drowned."

I thought to myself; "Did Damien do that too"? I walked in view of the spot where you would stand and fight Silver again. Silver was already there except he was standing on the fence tile with a part of the fence overlapping his neck. I went to talk to him and he pleaded:

"Aw hell, It's you. Listen, That red-headed jerk you were with before got me stuck. Would you please let me out?"

A "Yes or No" option came up, and because I generally hold a grudge I said no, which he replied with a "Piss off". However, I wanted to find out what happened if I said yes, so I helped him by backing up, and he simply got out. He tricked me. He then continued with his original dialogue as if he just got here. We fought, and he left with with his original speech not saying a word about Damien.

I played the rest of the game through without any more mention of Damien or what he did at Slowpoke Well. I figured that Damien just edited the beginning to Azalea town and was too lazy to continue on with his "epic" story (that's what he calls it later). When reached Mt. Silver, I was gravely wrong.

Instead of Red being at the top of the Mountain, I saw Damien standing there with Silver. Silver was fighting him, and this time, he beat Damien. Damien, enraged by this continues with the following dialogue:

"IT ISN'T FAIR! The only thing I wanted was to be the best trainer. It was all that was going for me. Nobody wanted me around, talk to me, or believe I exist. But I can FIGHT! Now you took my joy of being the region's best trainer, you are going to see what happens to everybody who gets in my way!"

Silver ran to the front edge of the mountain closely followed by Damien. It looked as though he was pushing Silver, and about to send him off the edge. That was when they both noticed I was watching.

Silver: Gold! Thank god you are here. Get this lunatic to buzz off!

Damien: Don't listen to him! Remember how he treated you before? When he pushed you around and acted like a dick?

Gold: ...

Silver: Look, I know what I did before. But I've changed. I have taken Lance's advice and I'm nice to my Pokémon.

Damien: Well, GOLD? What's it going to be? Should we kill him or let him go?

Another "Yes/No" question. Having OCD with saving the game meant if something irreversible happened upon choosing one choice, I could reboot and check out the other.

I decided I should forgive Silver for being an asshole early in the game and Gold told Damien to let him free.

Gold: He's telling the truth, set him free.

Damien: Heh Heh, a poor choice of words.

Silver disappeared and the noise of the "Screech" move played followed by a thud.

Damien: Ha! Ha! What music! Beautiful screams followed by one big splat!

Damien turns around and walks up to my character.

"Now that you saw that I cannot risk you telling anybody. You were the best and only friend I had, but now your usefulness ends here."

A battle initiated with the music of the final battle with Lance/Red showing a red version of the sprite of Blue. I was rather excited to battle Damien for the first time, curious to see what kind of bad-ass Pokémon he had on his team.

"DAMIEN wants to fight!"

"DAMIEN sent out LANTURN!"

I beat that with my Sudowoodo, although it wasn't easy since Lanturn is both Electric AND water.

DAMIEN sent out EXEGGUTOR

I switched to my Typhlosion and beat that one.

Damien lost once I beat his Gengar and Crobat, he said this:

"ARGH! GODDAMNIT NO!"

After the battle ended and we returned to the overworld he stated his last words: "Just because you won a Pokémon battle doesn't mean you can beat me in real life." Damien then does the same thing to Gold that he did to Silver and pushed him off. The screen went to what looked like the bottom of the mountain where a custom-made sideways version of Silver lay nearby as Gold plummets down to the ground he would normally do as if he teleported somewhere. The screen faded to black and Gold lay sideways as well, similar to Silver.

I couldn't move as there were apparently invisible walls around my character. Gold's sprite of laying on one side didn't change when I faced different directions even though I heard a bumping noise. I was stuck and I didn't bring any escape ropes with me. I asked my Dugtrio I got from Diglett's cave to use "dig" but I was told it wouldn't work there. My Kadabra lost the move Teleport when I thought he didn't need it anymore.

I rebooted the game again and decided to see what would happen if I said no. The same thing happens with the exception of Damien telling me that I made the right choice, then ironically turning on me anyway.

The next time I saw my friend Damien in real life, he asked me what I thought of his "epic masterpiece" as he put it. I asked him what the hell was wrong with him. He unsympathetically chuckled saying that he spent all those months putting the hack together once he figured out how to fix the game's saving problem. I asked him how he found out how to hack a game and he told me he found a video on You Tube. He wanted to show me the video he bookmarked, but we were disappointed to have discovered the video got removed by the author.

He preceded to laugh at me for being scared at his psychopathic behavior in the game, saying it was all in good fun.

About a year later Damien and his family moved away and he wanted the game back because he said that if he were to have friend who played Pokémon, he could mess with hem too. I tried to advise against that, so his last words before leaving were:

"You and what army, jackass?"


End file.
